Bard
Bard Prerequisite: Character Level: 20 You are most likely to find a Bard relaxing in the shade of tall oak tree, quietly composing poems and songs. Often Bards are also found at the center of boisterous social events, wooing the crowd with charming music and dance. Little known the to the people is the colorful Bard's excellent combat prowess. Using arcane musical spells and enchantments, the Bard suavely overwhelms the enemy with waves of power chords and fast-paced hypnotic music. The Bard's gregarious songs and sonnets also have healing and defense powers. Bard Stats Bard Class Skills Support Role Bard is an unique support class that brings an array of buffs, debuffs and healing spells to his or her group. Their main benefits to groups are: *Healing: even though Bards have good offensive abilities, they're more oriented towards supporting and healing. Cure will be their main healing spell untill Music of Life, a incredibly powerful healing over time effect that affects his or her entire group. *Buffs: Bards can bring an unique and ample array of boosting spells to their allies. Defensive buffs (Song of Illusion), offensive buffs (Spirited Melody, War Rhyme, Demonic Symphony) and a great movement speed buff (Poem of Wind). *Debuffs: not only Bards receive the Accuracy debuff from Earth Shock, but they also have Burning Metal, which lowers the defense of enemies in a wide area. *Debuff Removal: even though they don't have as many tools to remove debuffs as their fellow Clerics, Bards still have the Prevention skill to remove ailments from allies. This can reduce the damage taken and reduce the amont of healing needed to keep your party alive. *Revival: as any class from the Support archetype, Bards can bring allies back to life if not in combat. Ressurected players are brought back in the same place where their bodies were, but are immune to effects and invisible to monsters for a few seconds. Make sure they get away from enemies before the immunity ends! Bards aren't as much of a healer specialist as Clerics, but what they lack in healing tools they make up in utility. Healing Strategies Though their healing capacity is crippled untill they learn Music of Life, they can easily solo heal 3-man dungeons and support their fellow Clerics in 5-man dungeons. Constantly maintain your Music of Life stacked to 3 and throw Cure whenever its needed. Even though buffing is what Bards are specialized in, these are of no use if your group is dead. Being grouped with a Cleric gives more freedom to cast your buffs while he or she keeps everyone healthy; but watch for debuffs and heavy damage moments, when your felow healer might need help. You can also press control+(1-4) or F1-F4 and it will select a party member. This let's you change quickly from target to target for healing. In a party it is usually better to focus on healing, while occasionally going for a buff if Music of Life is keeping up. To solve the issue of re-targeting to heal, look under the Chr section of the Settings options in the main menu; from here you can access a number of interface options, the most important of which is the Target option, which gives the ability to self-cast without a proper target selected (if you are targeting an enemy, you will target yourself with all supportive abilities). Combat Untill level 25, the Bard's soloing capacity is slow, relying only on two single target spells: Earth Shock and Vocal Bomb. However, once they get Burning Metal, combined with Poem of Wind, it's very easy to run around in circles while hitting several targets with Burning Metal. Keep in mind that, in a group, your priorities are in this order: healing, surviving (potions, kiting, running out of stuff in the ground), buffing, debuffing and, for last, doing damage. Gear and Stats Most Bard spells require you to have a Guitar equipped, so any other weapon is out of question. All Bards are forced to wear Light Armor, unlike Clerics who use Cloth Armor. If you're focusing on soloing and doing damage, you'll want INT, M-ATK, M-CRIT, and M-CRIT DMG. However none of these affect your healing, therefore if thats your focus go for WIS, Cast SPD and G-Healing. Quests and vendors, in closed beta, don't usually ''have available INT or WIS light armor for bards, but STR and AGI armor for Hunters. If you just switched to Bard it is a good investment to craft some of the level 20 armor with INT disponible and buy a Guitar from the weapon vendor in Aeden. Pictures bard casting spell full.jpg|Bard in combat bard casting spell2 full.jpg|Bard Casting a spell bard on lama thumb.jpg|Llama time! Bard riding a llama. Trivia *Bard is currently the only class that is a class prerequisite to another class (Blade Dancer ) that has a different class branch than itself and is the '''only class prequisite' for said class. Cleric, Shaman, Martial Artist (the secondary class requirments for Templar, Warlock and Ranger) do not fit into Bard's category as Bard is the only prerequisite for Blade Dancer, while Templar, Warlock, and Ranger have another class requirment that is in their Class Branch in addition to the class that is not in their Class Branch: EX: Blade Dancer's requirments would be both Bard and Thief or Martial artist to folllow the model of those classes: however, this is not the case, and Bard is still the only class that is a prerequisite to another class that has has a different class branch than itself that is the only class prerequisite for the class. Category:Classes Category:Healing and Support